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Tuesday, May 10, 2005

UTPT Nostalgia

Received the following mail from Siddhartha Vaidyanathan, a QuizCorp 'old boy'. Siddhartha (or "Bib" to us), is known in QuizCorp (and outside it) as the funniest guy to walk the planet, the guy who could solve The Hindu Crossword in a little below 45 minutes, the guy who got copped up by Wisden at the first possible opportunity. Even Harsha Bhogle had a thing to say about Bib.

Not many 18 year olds join an engineering college for quizing. Surprisingly I didn't repent the decision at 22. It was partly because of quizzing, partly because of quizcorp that was an extension of family, partly because of an annual chaos that we eagerly awaited, partly because of a combination of all of this and partly because one found a group of like-minded losers who had joined engineering for exactly the same reason.

Quizzing wasn't a step towards enlightenment, it wasn't an elitist passion that only a select few pursued and it wasn't an activity that intellectuals indulged in. It was s simple sport that didn't require too much effort to enjoy. Read what you want, watch any films you want, listen to any music you want, think the way you want and come and quiz. Sometimes we won, mostly we lost, but generally we enjoyed it and that was probably what mattered. It was gully cricket at its best - play the way you want, and the fun will follow.

UTPT taught one to screw up. Where are the sponsors? We don't have cash? Publicity? Infrastructure? Chief guests? Cello tape? Prize money? Oh super ... the sponsors backed out. Let's go have a fag at least. Of course, there were moments when things went off smoothly, when you were shocked that nothing screwed up and when you were being patted on the back. Wasn't that what all those fags were for?

But the most poignant moment came when I had left college. When UTPT hit me like a cyclone in a desert. When the HR head of I-flex technologies (my first company) told me that one of their teams had come for the corporate quiz in RVCE and had been so impressed that I-flex decided to relax their policies of visiting only IITs and NITs and chose to take students from RVCE. It hit me so hard, that I left the place a few days later (for entirely differnet reasons of course).